Skill level
Each game skill level provides general difficulty settings that allow a greater variety of players to enjoy the game, allowing novices to face fewer opponents even with advantages for the player, and giving those who have mastered the game a challenge against many monsters, possibly with enhanced aggressiveness. Each skill level bears a colorful name suiting the character of the particular game being played and can be selected when the game starts or through additional options, particularly the -skill parameter. Doom and Doom II skill levels #This is the name or tag for each skill level according to the source code. #Each thing placed in a level (except for player starts) has cumulative bit flags (easy, normal, hard) marking on what skill levels it appears. The difference mainly amounts to larger and tougher comportments of monsters on the harder skill levels, but may also account for changes in the location of certain things. For example, in E3M6: Mt. Erebus the blue key is located in different places depending on the skill level. #''Double'' means twice as much ammo is added to the player's current total when a corresponding item is picked up. For example, a rocket will provide 2 rockets, 4 shotgun shells will be counted as 8 shells, and a box of bullets will provide 100 bullets instead of the usual 50. #All cheat codes except idclev and iddt are disabled. Some source ports may change this or have internal workarounds. #Monsters attack more rapidly, demons and spectres move faster and several monster fireball types fly faster. Heretic skill levels See the Doom and Doom II table above for specific notes, as there are no differences in general, except that +50% means one and a half times as much ammo is added to the player's current total when a corresponding item is picked up. Hexen skill levels See the Doom and Doom II table above for specific notes, as there are no differences in general. Strife skill levels See the Doom and Doom II table above for specific notes, as there are no differences in general. Doom 64 skill levels Non-Doom engine games Doom 3 skill levels Notes * In addition to the five Doom standard skill levels, in vanilla Doom a skill level of 0 can also be specified, but only using the -skill parameter. Doing this empties maps of all things apart from the player starts. This does not work in many source ports. It also renders many levels that have boss trigger effects, require keys or use teleporters impossible to finish without the aid of cheat codes. * Early versions of Doom did not support "Nightmare!" skill. The initial mail-order releases were version 1.1 and only included the first four skill levels. The widely circulated version 1.2 added "Nightmare!" skill support. "Nightmare!" was added with the characteristic dark humor of the Doom games in response to any comments saying the game was too easy on "Ultra-Violence." After selecting "Nightmare!" from the main menu, the player is asked "Are you sure? This skill level isn't even remotely fair." The player must then confirm that he wants to play on Nightmare mode, a step which is unique to this skill level. * The name of Doom's fourth skill level, "Ultra-Violence", comes from a phrase in Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, via Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film version http://rome.ro/smf/index.php/topic,1560.0.html. * In the Doom alphas, "I'm too Young to Die" was called "I Just Want to Kill", hence the name M_JKILL for the graphic for skill 1. * Doom's "I'm Too Young To Die" skill level was re-named "I am a wimp" for Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn versions. * Some skilled players have created new challenges by defining custom rules, such as pacifist (not hurting monsters) and Tyson (fists, pistol, and chainsaw only). See also * Doom engine * Parameter Category:Gameplay